don’t suppose you’d have a friendly contact whose ear I could bend?’
‘In Organised Crime?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Nick Oxslade,’ Stu said without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Great bloke. Came from the other side of the tracks same as me so I’ve got a lot of time for him. Can I ask why?’
‘You can ask,’ Tallis said enigmatically.
Stu gave another snort of mirth. ‘If they ever give that bloke playing Jason Bourne the chop…’
‘Matt Damon?’
‘That’s the one,’ Stu said. ‘I reckon you’d be a great replacement. After myself, of course.’
Tallis phoned the Proactive Crime Unit via the main number and then asked for an eight-digit extension. It had once been possible to contact an Organised Crime Officer direct via Lloyd House, the West Midlands Police Headquarters, but, since a number had received threatening phone calls from imprisoned villains they’d help put away, certain security measures had been put in place. Organised Crime Officers were no longer based there but at a number of secret addresses. Although Tallis wouldn’t be able to talk to Oxslade directly, he could leave a message for him to call back. On getting through, he was told that the entire department were busy on a major operation. He left a message anyway and then, undeterred, called another number, got straight through.
‘Bloody hell, the walking dead!’ There followed a cloudburst of coughing.
‘Waking dead,’ he corrected her, ‘and isn’t it time you packed in smoking?’ He imagined Crow sneaking out of her office, heading for a secret space not yet commandeered by the fag police. Their paths had crossed in his last investigation. Based in Camden, Detective Inspector Michelle Crow had proved an invaluable if slightly unconventional ally. She was big, butch looking and ballsy. She also had electric thinking.
‘And do what exactly?’ she scoffed, regaining her composure.
‘Breathe more easily?’
‘You sound like an advert for cough sweets. Look, you should be grateful. Once our merry little band have been exterminated, they’ll be turning the full spotlight on booze next…’
‘They already have. Don’t you read the newspapers?’
‘Try not to,’ she fired back, and returned to her main theme. ‘Then they’ll be banning sex.’
Tallis blinked. That D.I. Michelle Crow had sex with anyone had never occurred to him. Time to move on swiftly. ‘Reason I’m calling, Micky…’
‘Is because, unable to resist my womanly charms, you want to ask me out.’
‘I’d love to, darling.’ He cringed. ‘And next time I’m in London I will, but—’
‘You want to use me.’ She dropped her voice to a lascivious growl. Christ, what was she on? Tallis wondered, deeply regretting making the call. ‘Wish I could see your face.’ She burst out laughing. ‘So what can I really do you for?’
Tallis ignored the double entendre and ploughed on. ‘I need to know if two guys have sneaked within your radar. They go by the names of Toby Beaufort and Tennyson Makepeace.’
‘What did they do, steal someone’s poems?’
‘Killed a British journalist in Turkey.’
‘Straight up?’ A wily note had crept into Crow’s voice. Tallis imagined her chair creaking under the weight of her sizable rear.
‘Evidence pointing that way.’
‘Ah-hah,’ Crow said knowingly.
‘Obviously, this is all off the record.’
‘You need absolute discretion.’
‘Absolute.’
‘Strictly entre nous.’
Sod, that playful streak had crept back into her voice. ‘Yes.’
‘It will cost.’
He had been very much afraid of that. ‘I’m sure we can come to some agreement,’ he said neutrally.
‘I still haven’t forgotten being locked in your bloody toilet.’ It had been the only way to prevent her from getting involved in the action, he remembered.
‘I’m sure you haven’t,’ he said, closing his eyes. When he’d finally let her out, she’d charged at him like a wounded rhino.
‘Right, then,’ she said, businesslike. ‘I’ll see what I can turn up.’
The phone call from Oxslade, the Organised Crime Officer for whom he’d left a message, came through shortly before four in the afternoon. Tallis explained his contact with Stu. The mention of his old mate’s name worked like a magic charm. ‘I’m at the Forensic Science Service, waiting for a statement,’ Oxslade said, ‘but I could meet you later.’ He sounded bright and enthusiastic. How refreshing, Tallis thought. Oxslade suggested they meet at the Tarnished Halo on Ludgate Hill. Tallis knew that it was a popular haunt with the Fraud Squad so he proposed the White Swan in Harborne instead. This agreed, they arranged to meet at six that evening.
‘I’ll be wearing a brown leather jacket, jeans,’ Oxslade added, ‘and I’ve got short red hair.’
The rest of the afternoon was spent tackling the savannah outside and cutting it to more manageable proportions. Plants past rescue Tallis dug up and chucked onto an ever-increasing compost heap, the rest he weeded and fed with something out of a bottle that smelt mildly of antiseptic. By five, he was having his second shave of the day followed by a shower.
Instead of taking the car, he walked and caught a bus. It wasn’t far. He was still smarting from the earthquake and, though this minuscule change in lifestyle wouldn’t matter a damn in the great scheme of things, it made him feel more comfortable with himself.
The pub was already buzzing with early diners. Oxslade greeted him with an open expression. He was indeed redhaired and pink-faced and probably older than he looked. Already a third of the way down a pint, he asked Tallis what he was drinking. Tallis viewed the ales on tap and plumped for a pint of Banks. Eventually, they found a corner table far enough away from the clamour to hear but not be overheard. Tallis took a pull of his pint. Oxslade did the same and viewed Tallis with an expression bordering on awe.
‘Stu explained you once worked together.’
Stu would. ‘That’s right.’
Oxlade beamed. ‘I’ve often been asked if I thought my job was dangerous, you know when we take the big guys down? Know what my standard response is?’
Tallis didn’t. He shook his head.
‘I tell them we send the firearms officers in first to do the dirty stuff. We only waltz in once the offenders are trussed up like chickens.’
Tallis smiled, remembering.
‘Anyway,’ Oxslade said, ‘gather you want to talk about SOCA.’
‘Amongst other things.’
Oxslade grinned, leant forward conspiratorially. ‘We think of them as the blokes who write jokes for comedians.’
‘Yeah?’ Tallis grinned back.
‘They never receive the applause or the laughs.’
Different take to Stu, Tallis thought, sharing the joke. If Oxslade was right, he wouldn’t have thought Napier was that well suited to the job.
Oxslade took another drink. ‘Can I ask why the interest?’
‘I want to track someone I fought with during the first Gulf War.’ He asked if Oxslade knew Napier.
‘In passing. Not well.’
‘Was